I – had – a – blast.

I’m SO glad that I attended, and would will absolutely be going again. Hopefully soon! I didn’t realize that NAPP was made up of such a great group of people – both employees, and members. Seriously. I went there on my own, made some friends, learned some stuff, and had a ball.

First I’d like to thank Mark (@tweakt) for letting me crash on his couch so that I could afford the trip in the first place. Thanks again! Would’ve been nice to actually hang out more while I was in town, but the schedule of events for PSW was pretty crazy as you saw. hahaha

I met a number of the forum peeps from the NAPP forums. They were all incredibly friendly and welcoming. My new buddies Lisa & Dave sage (@Lisa_Sage) – had a lot of amusing conversations with them. I was very excited to finally meet Nancy (@NAPP_News) – OMG she’s such a sweetheart! Margaret & April (@AprilAndrews?) were both cool – I ran into them a number of times. April has an awesome purse, and Margaret had a cool haircut so I could spot either in a crowd I met Firgs (@Firgs) of course! She’s a riot! hahahaha I can’t believe she talked RC into having the whole crowd do “the wave” right before the Closing Ceremonies started. Met Don Ricklin (@DonRicklin) the first night and realized just how small a world it is. Back in high school I knew his niece and nephew!

Met & bumped into a handful of others that I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time with and will probably get some of their names wrong… Hask/Harold was always smiling & friendly. Then there was Jeff (@jtamagini?), Will?, Roux (@LRoux?), Elizabeth (@egower), … and a number of others that I can’t think of at the moment. Too wiped from the trip – but I’m surprised I actually remember that many.

As for the instructors and staff – everyone was awesome (including Nancy mentioned above). I can’t believe how approachable everyone was! The instructors were knowledgeable and funny. Bert Monroy – as I said on Twitter – his work and knowledge just blows me away. He’s very inspiring. I wanted to send a special thanks to RC (@LayersTV_RC). He’s a big sweetheart and really helped make sure that I had a great time and felt at home. Thanks again RC!

Getting tired, and I’m dwindling, so I’ll have to stop there. I’m sorry for all those that I know I’ve forgotten. It was a pleasure to meet and spend time with you all.

This time it’s semi-local and in my favorite city – Boston. So that just makes me want to go even more My other justifications for going is that it would be a GREAT opportunity to network, I’ll learn a ton, and it’ll give me an excuse for a solid target date to work towards a few things … like finishing up my website design

I won’t have to pay for airfare, so that will help keep the price down. But the other variables… That’s what’s killing me!

Do I find a hotel nearby and pay the extra $$ for the convenience? Or do I borrow a friend’s couch for a few nights and hope that our schedules work out so that he’s home to let me in? If so, then I’ll either need to drive into the city and pay for parking ($$$), or walk to the T stop and commute in. Do I drive up to Boston so I have the freedom of going wherever, whenever, as I see fit – or do I take the train to save on parking while putting my commute to productive use?

My tax refund initially looked pretty promising to cover everything and I was really jazzed about going. Then I received more tax paperwork which made my refund significantly lower, and I started to wonder if I should just stay home and use the money to pay towards debt. I’ll still be able to cover all this – and more comfortably if I wanted to commute into the city and sleep on a friend’s couch.

Ok – that’s it. I think I’ve finally decided. I’ll buy the tickets.

We started off with our first trip to the San Diego Zoo. It was a long day of walking around, but we saw most of the animals and had a great time. I let Steve take most of the photos since he had better zoom on his camera.

From there we cruised quickly through Balboa Park with just enough time to grab some photos before sunset and grab dinner. We were all starving, so I’m glad that everyone humored me and let me grab pictures. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

On Friday I went to Comic-Con with KC and Kim, while Steve tooled around historic Route 101 and wandered down the coast (I figured I’d only subject Steve to one day of the convention). We all met up for dinner with Pete and his girlfriend for dinner at this Hawaiian place with a great view of the San Diego skyline.

We realized how close we were to the Pacific and ended up wandering down to the beach each night. It was great. Relaxing. The tide was so strong compared to back home!

Saturday we all went to a great sandwich place for lunch that Steve found on the coast. It’s on a cliff in La Jolla with a great view. There are hang gliders and paragliders all over the skies there. More photos here.

Afterwards we all went to Comic-Con. I took a bunch of photos – but not nearly as many as I would have liked. Sunday we headed up to LA and detoured to Temecula for a wine tasting and tour of the Callaway Winery and Vineyard. They had a few decent wines, one or two great wines, but the rest were either “eh” or horrible.

Our hotel in LA was pretty cool. Minimalistic. Comfy bed. Very “Euro” looking. Creepy photos in the elevators. Expensive minibar. Funky sheep in the hotel lobby that would randomly be rearranged when no one was looking. hehehehe

LA was a bit of a whirlwind. We checked out Venice Beach (briefly – it was a moderately frightening experience), dinner on Sunset Boulevard, wandered through the 3rd St Promenade and the Santa Monica Pier before heading into the almost icy water on a very windy and unseasonably cold day. We even stopped by In-N-Out burger to get my annual fix.

The toughest part of the whole trip was the 5.4 earthquake the day before our return flight. Apparently the largest one in almost 15 years? Pretty scary on the 6th floor of a hotel…

The Last HOPE has come to an end. I can’t wait until The Next HOPE. They were originally expecting that this would be the last one (hence the name) because of plans to tear down Hotel Pennsylvania. Apparently the economy is so horrible that those plans have now been delayed – and so they’re planning another HOPE for 2010.

I had a blast. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I ended up having a great time. I missed the Segway racing =( but saw some neat (and otherwise indescribable) “art”. Many of the talks didn’t sound particularly interesting to me, but once I sat down at them and listened for a few minutes I was glad that I went. The more talks I attended, the more I wanted to go to.

The highlight of the weekend was Adam Savage. He only had an hour and I would have happily sat there for several (compared to Jello Biafra who had 2 hours – and no matter how much inspiring and interesting things he had to say, I can only listen to him talk for so long). Adam seamed genuinely humbled and ecstatic to be there. His “talk” was only about 15 minutes, and gave the rest of the hour to the fans for questions. This time spent listening to his stories and talking to the fans in the crowd only increased my respect an admiration for him and the Mythbusters.

Several (but not nearly all) of the photos taken have been resized and uploaded to Flickr here as well as embedded in this journal entry. I may upload more there after I return from my next trip. Until then, I hope enjoy what I’ve uploaded so far.